We've all made the mistake of admiring them. Who wouldn't? In the
words of one mental health professional, they are "perfectionists, goal-achieving."
Is that now a disease? Is it a disease to be "the good students,
the good child, the good mate, the good friend"? Is competitiveness a
disease? Does anyone remember when
competitiveness was a cherished American value? In today's Orwellian
world ruled by the Pharmaceutical-Industrial
Complex, it apparently is not only a sin, but an illness.
If you won't attend your therapy, if you won't swallow their pills,
you will be made to do so by force. It's all about control.

But you can at least talk about it, can't you? They may
control your body, but in today's Internet Age, no one can tell you
what you may post on the web, and what you may not. Right?

Wrong. If what you have to say is pro-ani, meaning pro-anorexia, then
you don't have the right to say it, any more than you have the right
to live your chosen lifestyle and live in the body you want to live
in.

"Anorexics tend to be a competitive bunch," says
Jenn Berman, a
Beverly Hills-based therapist who daily sees the
eating disorders
that take hold arise in the driven athletes and
actresses she treats.
"So reading that someone lost X amount of pounds
just ups their
activities. It's one of the reasons that group
therapy isn't
recommended. Anorexics try to outdo each other--
in illness, not in
success." LA Times.

This drive to infantilize women is widespread.
The supposedly-excessive competitiveness of the
science and technology fields is blamed
for the underutilization of women in these
jobs, yet when tough, competitive women come
along who want to assert their ownership of
their own bodies, they are lucky to merely be
called mad. They are called a
dangerous
influence on
young girls. Rather
than let teen women find role models in those who
are willing to work to get what they want, to
fight and make sacrifices to achieve their goal in the face of disapproving authorities,
these paternalistic shepherds of female minds and bodies
would move
mountains and remake the whole of society. The censors
would rather everyone became more meek, and that
corporate and academic high-tech became a safe
and non-threatening environment for the timid,
frightened little girls they want all women to be.

I tried to find pro-ani web sites and found them mostly censored.
Where is the exciting-sounding Waifspace?
Censored, by anti-waif Nazis who hate anything that gives real
pleasure in life. There are a handful of pro-ani sites left, but
finding them requrires a combination of money, time, and immense
technical skill that is generally only available to organizations like
Adequacy.org.

This should be understood as strictly a battle of
propaganda. In The
Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf tried to claim that 150,000 deaths per
year are due to eating disorders. Conservatives
countered with a death figure of less than 100. The low figure is
closer
to the truth, as it turns out. The cynicism of this propaganda is
chilling. Wolf also flatly argues that obesity is not unhealthy for
women, and that studies showing otherwise are based only on male
subjects. We've entered the territory of the "Big Lie" here, harking
back to Soviet and Nazi information ministries. It isn't about data
any more. It isn't even about common experience; so what if nearly
everyone you and I know over the age of 70 is thin, male or female.
It's all for a good cause, see?

Even if obesity kills, there are
more important causes to support. The power of the patriarchy is
being usurped, and if a few lies need to be told along the way, it's
worth it, right? The problem is that this power over women isn't
being destroyed; it is merely changing hands. The new owners of
female minds and bodies are the therapists, the activists, and the
opinion-makers of the feminist machine.

So if you want to put up a pro-fatweb site,
no one will harass your ISP into censoring you. No one will call you
irresponsible for leading the young to an early death. You can work
it out for yourself here: you know that obesity causes
diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and stroke, to name the first, second,
third and sixth causes of death. Even if 150,000 women per year did die from
anorexia, it would be less of a threat than the true American disease, obesity, and those touting the
joys of fatness would have more blood on their hands than any pro-ani subversive.
Taking
control of your body is a way of taking control of your life. No
matter if you are a body builder, or a fashion plate, what matters is
who decides. Pro-ani
might be a dangerous stand to take, but so is pro-automobile (killer of
400,000 per year, by the way). The funny thing is, beautiful
and strong seem to go together, and those who would control young
women can't stand it.

What is beauty? Only you can decide, ultimately. Those who would tell you that your idea of beauty, thin or fat, stylish or dirty hippy, is wrong, may say it is for your own good, but take a closer look at their agenda. What are they really trying to take away from you?

This is obviously due to strong marketing by the food industry who would like us all to eat a MicMac for every meal. Addiction to carbohydrates (a huge invisible problem) doesn't get any press for the same reason.

Well, if you believe that we were designed by someone with a purpose in mind, then that somone must have been God. Fair enough. According to Genesis, we were originally meant to only eat plants, until the Fall. In our original state of grace, plants were good enough.

Importantly, this option is still open to us, and we can reach for Godliness by rejecting the life of post-Fall sinning, such as eating animal flesh.

Not that you have to follow that reasoning; it's just that if you want to have faith in a "designer" then you might as well take the whole package.

They eat fish. Fish is a good supply of protien. Believe it or not homo-sapians were not designed to subsist on vegtables and grains.

Niether were they designed to subsist on "98% meat," as the post I was replying to spoke of. Many societies have, in fact, subsisted on vegetables and grains. One illuminating point is prerevolutionary France, where the nobility subsisted on almost eclusively meat, and the peasantry subsisted on almost exlcusively vegetables (note the correct spelling, please) and grains. Almost all sources consider the peasants' diet to be more healthy than the nobles' (barring famines and the like, of course.)

In any case, your poor attempt to turn the conversation serious is, well, poor. It is equally valid to call the Inuit "meat addicts" as it would be to call us "carbohydrate addicts," and the fact that I have to explain this in such explicit terms makes me lament the intelligence (or lack thereof) of adequacy posters.

So Slubbergullion, how many generations did it take for us to reach our current state as a species which allows us to live healthy lives eating so many carbs?

The press conspiracy. (none / 0) (#36)

by Anonymous Reader on Wed Feb 20th, 2002 at 06:10:10 AM PST

Addiction to carbohydrates (a huge invisible problem) doesn't get any press for the same reason.

Yes, and a conspiracy by ICI and SmithKlineBeecham keeps the issue of their dihydrogen-oxide pollution of our rivers and lakes out of the public domain.

whats di-hydrogen-oxide? (none / 0) (#50)

by Anonymous Reader on Thu Feb 21st, 2002 at 08:36:06 AM PST

OMG THERE DUMPING THAT INTO THE RIVERS!

The High Fashion of mental disorders. (5.00 / 1) (#9)

by Anonymous Reader on Mon Feb 18th, 2002 at 11:55:29 AM PST

Honestly, Refutation, next you will be telling us that measles is a "lifestyle choice". Or that you cannot be a patriotic American without an addiction to crack cocaine.

The truth is that there are plenty of anorexia discussion sites. They disappear not because of technical reasons and the "censorship" you speak of, but because THEIR OWNERS ARE DEAD. How difficult is this to understand? If you stop eating, you will eventually die. Yet murderers like Jasmuheen are allowed to roam the Earth freely, spreading their lies and killing the innocent na´ve, thanks to your so-called "freedom of speech".

There is a limit that can be drawn between fashion and medical disorder. Drinking alcohol has been considered hip and trendy for many centuries (with a few exceptions), yet alcoholism remains one of the most devastating disorders known to society. It wrecks not just the life of the alcoholic, but all of the people around them. People who care for them, and whom they once cared for. Alcoholics can be distinguished from normal drinkers. For example, normal drinkers can hold on to their jobs. Normal drinkers will not be found living on a park bench, clutching a bottle of cheap cider in a brown paper bag. Normal drinkers will not go home and beat their wife. There are plenty of pro-drinking sites on the internet. There are plenty of sites where real alcoholics hang out and discuss the super-strength lager. But I have yet to see any honest site recommend becoming a clinical alcoholic.

So, back to eating disorders. Celebrities know that restraint rarely gets them in the newspapers. So they don't just drop one dress size, they drop two. They have their publicity photos touched up by computer to make them look that bit thinner. They wear as little clothes as they dare. Yet how many do you see looking like Ethiopean refugees? None. That is where the celebrity world of excess and the brutal reality of eating disorder diverge. Of course, with regard to women's self-mutilation of their bodies, men's sexual preferences have a lot to answer for. You ironically refer to this as women "assert[ing] their ownership", but it is in fact asserting the opposite; that of womankind's subjugation by man. Consider Chinese foot-bindings. These are now outlawed, but back in the day Chinese women would have their feet bound with tight ropes as children, so their feet would not grow larger. Of course, this left them permanently unable to walk without support, but it satisfied the Chinese men's sexual desires for tiny feet. Here in America, women are happy to undergo needless surgery to enhance their breast size, increasing their chance of developing breast cancer and potentially poisoning their bodies with silicone. Why do they do it? They do it to be more attractive to men.

I'll end on a Handy Tip to Remember: if you think being ill makes you more attractive, something has gone seriously wrong.

Huh? Take a look at any Playboy, Hustler or, well, anywhere on the internet aside from a pro-anorexia site. You know, places where maleslook at the sort of female bodies they like to see. How many of those glassy-eyed pinup girls do you see that resemble Kate Moss? Not too many. That count-the-ribs and skin-stretched-over-bare-hipbones look isn't showing up there. It has been shown, in fact, that they are on average slightly heavier than the women shown in, say, Cosmopolitan or Redbook. Granted, there are none of the Great Midwestern Lardbeasts or other fatties in evidence, but The U.S. has enough of an obeity problem as is. The fact is that guys don't' for the skeletal look any more than for the cottage-cheese thigh thing.

Women who starve themselves are doing it to impress other women in a social sense, not men in a sexual sense. If they are, they're woefully misinformed because I don't know any guy who enjoys having bruises on his hips from bumping his girlfriend's emaciated pelvic bones during sex. That most male infamous fixation with the female body, you'll note, kinda requires that the women eat enough to maintain those wonderful masses of fatty tissue known as breasts. This is one thing that can't be blamed on the Noble Order of the Oppressing Y Chomosome.

Society vs illness (none / 0) (#19)

by Anonymous Reader on Tue Feb 19th, 2002 at 05:49:03 AM PST

How many of those glassy-eyed pinup girls do you see that resemble Kate Moss?

I agree, but I think you're missing an important point (Refutation missed it too, by the way) -- rake thin anorexics are mentally ill. There is pressure on women to be svelt, but this pressure can push them over the edge into mental illness, where they become obsessive about losing weight, even when society doesn't want them to. You may remember the widespread condemnation of Calista Flockhart for being rake-thin.

Despite their being many publications for the big-momma lovin' guy, the average USian male's sexual preference is the small, slender, bleached-blonde, large breasted pouting whore. The archetypal cheerleader, in fact. This spreads over into society at large (via fashion, the media, advertising, etc), but it is still based around the heterosexual desire to attract the opposite sex. Sure, there is a social element, but it's women vying with each other for the attentions of men.

Men, for what it counts, are also victims of eating disorders, but for no good reason are less motivated by their own sexual attractiveness and more motivated by social conformity.

they're woefully misinformed

No, they're ill.

requires that the women eat enough to maintain those wonderful masses of fatty tissue

Two words for you: Lolo Ferrari. She's dead, by the way. I personally agree with you -- warm, fatty tissue is wonderful -- but enlargement surgery does not leave nice, fatty masses. It leaves large, hard lumps. The quality of bosom only matters once you have a man. To attract a man, size is all that matters.

Who are you do decide who is mentally ill? If
somone says "I'm mentally ill and want help", then
they should get help. But if they say, "I'm fine
with who I am and want to be left alone" then just
what gives you the right to come along and label them
as being sick? How are you any different from the
Communist Chinese who throw women in mental institutions
because they say and do the "wrong" things?

I imagine a world run by people like you and I find
it to be a horrible nightmare of fascism and
cruel oppression. Perhaps you should join the
Taliban?

If you know anything about Adequacy.org,
you know that we think for ourselves. So...

Why believe the DSM IV? Because everything it says is
based on irrefutable scientific fact? Consider: up until about the 1980's,
homosexuality was called an illness by the DSM. Then they
decided to remove it. Why? Because new scientific facts had been
discovered which proved that being gay was not a disease? No way.
Society changed to the point that it just was generally
agreed that it should be taken off. The APA took a vote. A vote! Hardly a scientific method of discovering the truth about Nature. And, also ask yourself, how
did homosexuality get listed in the first place? Scietific evidence? Nope.
Just the fact that everybody at the time "knew" that
queers were sick. No question.

And NOW we have eating disorders labeled as a mental illness by
the same so-called scientists. What if I say we shouldn't
even say "eating disorder"? I say we should call it
"eating differently". What evidence (not appeals to authority) do
you have to reply with?

Oh, I know. Anorxia kills. Well, automobiles kill, and if
someone tells me he thinks he can't possibly go on
without his car, that he "needs" his car to live, then I
say he is not thinking rationally. Clearly, he is unable
to make choices about automobiles, and therefore should
be medicated, perhaps put into an institution. You know,
obesity kills too. Body building is not healthy. Cosmetic
surgery is downright risky.

Such is life. We all take risks and make sacrifices to get
what we want. Only a Stalinist would look at those who
want the "wrong" things and take the "wrong" risks and calls them
"mentally ill". Well, the Communist Chinese are doing the
same thing, it seems. I guess Adequacy.org
is the last place left that believes in freedom and dignity.

A pity.

I do, I do, I do--Bikini Kill

Illness (none / 0) (#35)

by Anonymous Reader on Wed Feb 20th, 2002 at 02:47:27 AM PST

Who are you do decide who is mentally ill?

I am, of course, just generalising. I mean, most of the critically underfed women I see in hospital do turn out to be mentally ill, although there was one women I remember who had been starved by her spouse.

I apologize for having compassion, but I'm tend to worry about people who needlessly endanger their own lives. The sight of ribs sticking out, or deep blood stains on the jeans or sleeves, touches some nerve I have.

Of course, this applies to your car drivers too. For most motorists, simply driving will not put them in any greater mortal peril than walking, but I do wring my liberalist hands for the kids that go joy-riding at high speed with virtually no driving experience (my driving instructor told me he was involved in this community scheme for showing under-16 joyriders how to drive. Every one of them had no idea how to drive, except for how to accellerate at high speed and then do uncontrolled skids).

How are you any different from the Communist Chinese who throw women in mental institutions because they say and do the "wrong" things?

The Chinese have political motives. Don't get me wrong, starving yourself is a political statement, but starving yourself "because you're a bit fat" is not.

Do people have a right to do what they will with their own bodies or not? What do you gain by forcing them to live what you think is the right way to live? By taking away their dignity and giving them mere health, you are putting them in the same position as house pets or farm animals.

Your point of comparison with automobiles is instructive. They are a threat not just to drivers, but to innocent pedestrians. This is far worse than those who eat differently, who harm only themselves, if anyone is harmed.

Why is making a political statement a test to qualify for free choice? What if I simply want to be free? Isn't it enough to want to choose my own fate, rather than be under the thumb of a do-gooding nanny state? Must I also care about politics to control my body?

Then again, what more essentially political statment is there than "keep your laws off my body"?

If a woman is misinformed about my perceptions about what I want, when I have done nothing to encouraged this misinformation, it's not my fault. If she is mentally ill, it is the product of her illness, fine, then it is the fault of that illness, not mine.

Now, of course, it is true that most males are attracted to thin women. It is also true that they aren't attracted to waif-thin ones, with the inevitable exceptions. If a woman erroneously extrapolates a male's desires based on her mental illness, it cannot be blamed on the male. That's like blaming the Hinckley's attempt on Reagan's life on Jody Foster**. Your original statement about male perceptions encouraging anorexia remains equally wrong whether its her own misinformation or an unfortunate mental condition at stake.

the waif-thin syndrome isn't the fault of individul male desires. Most men could desire goats for all women know. Media imagery of thin women has nothing to do with what men desire. The preoccupation with thinness in which most women are mired is directly the result of a vast white male conspiracy, whose purpose is to ensure that women are too distracted by their thighs to ever accomplish anything useful. Now, suppose for a minute that men actually desire carefree, plump women, the media could never reveal this, because then women would be free to do whatever the hell they want. Do you realize how dangerous that would be? Life on earth as we know it would cease.

Well, if you consider gatting raped in a medium-security prison to be an "accomplishement"...

--Peace and much love...

Get a better latin dictionary (1.00 / 1) (#11)

by Anonymous Reader on Mon Feb 18th, 2002 at 02:17:07 PM PST

Please. You are't fooling anyone.

Latin? (none / 0) (#20)

by Anonymous Reader on Tue Feb 19th, 2002 at 05:50:55 AM PST

You'd better put those reading specs on. I don't recall writing anything resembling Latin. On reinspection, I see one French word, and one word translated from Greek.

Do you mean "Latin-American?". I think that's called "Spanish", dude.

Well well (5.00 / 1) (#12)

by Anonymous Reader on Mon Feb 18th, 2002 at 02:36:19 PM PST

I suppose that you want to see an end to male domination of women by forcing men to enjoy looking at fat girls? Is that how it works?

Look, I don't like fat women. I like big boobs though. If that means that some woman who was born fat and flat chested has to A) develop an eating disorder, and B) get implants, in order to attract my attention, I don't see how that is my fault. She should just be happy with herself and go find someone else who has different tastes. Around here, cuntless big women are dating black men, who often have an idea of attractiveness that is a little more forgiving of heft. It doesn't mean that their idea is better, only that it is different.

You should stop being so judgemental and let me live my life. Stop blaming me for everyone else's problems.

But nobody gives a shit about your particular sexual hangups. Especially when somebody's well-being is in question.

Go jack off into a magazine, or something. You disgust me.

--Peace and much love...

Nope... (none / 0) (#18)

by Anonymous Reader on Tue Feb 19th, 2002 at 05:39:01 AM PST

You are clearly passionate about this subject, but you could at least make an attempt at being accurate...

They disappear not because of technical reasons and the "censorship" you speak of, but because THEIR OWNERS ARE DEAD.

Let's look at this from a logical perspective... Assuming the owners have died, how did the web hosting service find out? A lot of those sites are hosted on geocities or angelfire... Who keeps contacting these place and informing them that the owner of those pages is deceased? Their parents? I doubt their parents know they maintain the site. Who then? Isn't it much more likely that the site is taken down at the request of a third party?

Of course, with regard to women's self-mutilation of their bodies, men's sexual preferences have a lot to answer for.

Research doesn't agree with you. Women dress to impress one another. If they were dressing to impress men, they wouldn't be so thin and they'd wear nothing more than string bikinis. Dresses are elegant, but what gets men really going is naked female bodies. Why do you suppose pro-ana support groups don't work? Are the women competing for the affections of men, or just competing with one another?

Of course, this left them permanently unable to walk without support, but it satisfied the Chinese men's sexual desires for tiny feet.

The association of small feet and men must like it was made by the concubines (women) of a chinese emperor who adored one concubine in particular who was adept at dancing. The other concubines not wanting to concede that one was skilled and they were not decided it must be her tiny feet.

Women whose feet had been bound could walk without support, and the chinese men even had a name for it: "The Lotus Gait".

Men did get something sexual out of it of course. Since the women had to walk with their weight on their heels, it required them to move somewhat awkwardly and use their hips a lot more. This meant that to get around they were constantly working their pelvic floor muscle. *that* is what men got out of it. They believed that having sex with a foot bound woman was like having sex with a virgin.

Someone should have taught them to kegel instead.

complete your train of thought (5.00 / 1) (#21)

by Anonymous Reader on Tue Feb 19th, 2002 at 06:43:18 AM PST

Research doesn't agree with you. Women dress to impress one another.

And what are women impressed by? The prestige of high fashion.
However, fashion models are dressed by homosexual fashion designers. Since homosexual fashion designers are sexually attracted to young boys, homosexual fashion designers employ fashion models who are built like young boys. But why on earth would women take advice from men who are revolted by the feminine figure? Well, let's see you resist the advanced persuasive powers of lizard people from the 4th dimension.

So men are not to blame for girlish eating disorders, *homosexual* "men" are.

Sexual penchants have no influence on fashion design, which is but a fibre in a hopelessly intricate conspiracy which keeps human life on earth from erupting into oblivion. Women's liberation is an unspeakably dangerous thing, and must be checked. If it weren't a forced preoccupation with weight, it'd have to be something else, like scrubbing and plucking. Anything to keep their minds off consequential matters.

...with that trian of throught you might end up drafted to kill fellow Muslims.

(For Infinite Justice, of course.)

--Peace and much love...

what the? (none / 0) (#39)

by Anonymous Reader on Wed Feb 20th, 2002 at 02:47:51 PM PST

no offense, really, but you seem to be terribly preoccupied with conspiracy. I'm not saying anorexia is right or wrong, I'm just saying that logic tends to be more believable than outlandish comspiracy theories.

Incomplete poll options (none / 0) (#14)

by Anonymous Reader on Mon Feb 18th, 2002 at 11:47:58 PM PST

None of the above.

I don't care what you, my therapist, my parents, my church or my government have to say about my body. It's mine and they can't have it until I'm dead. After that I won't care what they do with it. Until then hands off. I'll make my own decisions thanks.

For those who wish to remain plus-sized or homely, striving for "self-acceptance" provides no escape from the cycle of self-examining behavior, as the marginal individual in today's therapy-culture is as trapped by their "affirmations", counselling sessions, advocacy groups, and self-help media as the supermodel is by her diet and exercise rituals.

In the face of which, the decision of the anorexic to efface the locus of all this oppression, the body, through a demonic effort of self-control, can be seen as the ultimate act of liberation. As the anorexic gradually wastes away, the crushing restraint of capitalism is trumped: death allows the anorexic to assert the one freedom against which even the semmingly invincible tyrrany of the market stands impotent.

This does not mean that the ghastly spectacle of people starving themselves to death is something to be celebrated: far from it. Still, the anorexic is a symptom of a mortal conflict that is not only fundamental to the constitution of late capitalism, but which has been at the heart of power relations since time immemorial: the struggle over the body. The appropriate strategy of resistance against the controls of capitalist society amounts to something along the lines of the acceptance of the body as the self.

Once the individual recognizes the identity of the self and the body, they are in a position to recognize the lines of restraint along which the cohort of capitalism: the diet industry, the fashion inustry, fast-food, avaricious therapists, dim-souled self-help book authors, seek to divide and conquer. Which is not to say that body modifications (hairdos, peircings, makeup, etc) should be proscribed, but rather that they should be undertaken in a ludic (fun, celebratory) sense, rather than as a means to some hegemonic end (snag a mate, get a promotion, etc).

As an emblem of this strategy of liberation, I present an individual whose celebration of himself totally escapes any possibilty of capitalist exploitation, yet at the same time has touched the lives of millions, and in some small way, made the world a better, freer place. The goatse man, hero of postmodern resistance (Okay, okay, I'm just kidding about goatman: sorry, can't help it, old t**ll habits die hard).

All in the mind... (none / 0) (#17)

by Anonymous Reader on Tue Feb 19th, 2002 at 04:14:28 AM PST

Your reaction to a pro-ani site depends on your OWN interpretation of it and state of mind.

Maybe it will make you anoreic, maybe it will put you off being one, maybe you will gain a greater insight into eating disorders, maybe you will see it a sign from the Devil that his work must done...

Taking a position that something cannot be published because someone might take it the wrong way is just a PC way of saying that person is morally/mentally inferior to yourself.

This might be true of children, and the insane, but I won't pretend to have the right to make that judgement about whole groups of people.

If you mean nice as in nice personality then I have to disagree. Usually the fat/ugly types try to overcompensate for their appearance with a sugary sweet personality. Now if you're talking about looks then yes, go cheerleaders!

I'm not sure you can talk about 'freedom,' 'control over one's body' and 'anorexia' in the same breath. My understanding of anorexia is that there is very little freedom or control involved. How many full-on anorexics do you know that are capable of giving up their habits if they wanted to? How many can even decide that it's time to change their habits? How many in an advanced stage of anorexia are even aware that that there is a different way to live? If they are, how many are tolerant of that 'weakness' known as eating enough for adequate nourishment?

All this to say that at that point, it ain't freedom and it ain't control. More like slavery. More like a cage you put yourself in. Women and girls are perfectly 'free' to become anorexics, but I don't think they stay that way for long.

Some psychologist with an office full of drug-industry
swag says "This patient has lost her free will."

The patient says, "No I have not. I choose what
I want. Leave me alone."

Why do you believe the shrink? Over 60% of Americans
are obese, and as a result they will die from cancer,
heart diseas, stroke and diabetes. Yet they have
free will? Why? I see no difference between them
and anorexics. How come fat people can say anything
they want on their web sites, and get their own TV
shows and magazines to tout their deadly lifestyle,
but the other side is called too "dangerous" to
be allowed any voice?

And how do you know so much about it when the
therapy and drug industry agents can silence at will
those anorexics who try to speak out? If you can
uncover the truth by hearing only
one side, you are way ahead of me.

you're not understanding what I'm getting at. When you're anorexic, there is a point at which you are not capable of saying, "Screw this not eating crap, I'm going to Baskin Robbins." You are not even aware that you have a choice anymore. So how is this free will?

This doesn't mean that I think morbidly obese people should be allowed to tout their lifestyles either. Someone once told me that only 10% of obese people are that way because of genetics. (Can't remember the source - I'll try to look it up.) Obese people, like anorexics, have put a value on food that is disproportionately higher than it should normally claim.

Do you really want to know why I know so much about anorexia? 20-odd years of ballet training and exposure to the vagaries and often seamy reality of the dance world. You do the math.

And you expect me to believe you because when it comes to your life, you ought to know, right? I don't know what it is like to be you, do I? If you tell me you lost your free will, who am I do deny it?

Yet you say that these pro-ani women can't speak for themselves? When they say, "I do have free will," you tell them, "you don't know your own mind." It doesn't wash. If you want me to respect your ability to make judgements about yourself, then I have to give others the same respect, don't I?

Free will is a slippery concept anyway, and it is easier to argue that no one has free will at all than to say anyone does. I think it is virtually impossible to look at other people and judge if they really are capable of choosing. If someone tells me he does or doesn't have free will, I'm willing to take them at their word.

I just don't see why one individual's assessment of their own state should be generalized to others, especially when those on the receiving end of the generalization are protesting their independence.

Actually, I was never a full anorexic myself. I just had many friends who spent time in hospitals weighing 75 pounds. None of those who survived said later on that they had control while in the throes of anorexia, or that they would have made a different choice from recovery.

Even then, I concede your point that knowing the experiences of a large group doesn't mean I know the experiences of the aggregate. And who am I to tell people what their own realities should be?

Oy, it's late Friday afternoon and my brain hurts. Maybe something clearer on this later, preferably after several drinks.

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